| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: holding her hand very fast while they both looked down into the
valleys and coves. As the shadows of evening crept up to the cliff
whereon they stood, and as those shadows folded round and round the
points and coves, those points and caves lying below and beyond fold
over fold, everything grew purple and violet.
Everything grew so purple, and so violet, and so great, and so wide
that it seemed sometimes to the little girl, standing on the cliff
by Sister Helen Vincula, that she was looking right down into the
heart of a violet as great, as wide--as great, as wide--as the whole
world.
But this did not seem so strange to Bessie Bell, for she yet
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: good-natured, hello-kid kind--the kind that takes you out to
dinner and blows cigar smoke in your face. Along comes this
chap, elegant, well dressed and not even conscious of it,
polished, suave, smooth, low-voiced, well bred. Why, when he
spoke to a girl, it was the subtlest kind of flattery. Can you
see little Sadie Harris, of Duluth, drawing a mental comparison
between Sam Bloom, the store-manager, and this fascinating
devil--Sam, red-faced, loud voiced, shirt-sleeving it around the
sample room, his hat pushed 'way back on his head, chewing his
cigar like mad, and wild-eyed for fear he's buying wrong? Why,
child, in our town, nobody carries a cane except the Elks when
Emma McChesney & Co. |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: {3} The paragraphs beginning:
79--"I believe, then, with this exception..."
75--"Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy..."
19--"Now, in order to deal with words rightly,..."
79--"Then, in art, keep the finest models..."
{4} [Greek word which cannot be reproduced]
{5} Note this sentence carefully, and compare the 'Queen of the
Air,' paragraph "Nothing that I ever said is more ..."
{6} 2 Peter iii. 5-7.
{7} Compare the 13th Letter in 'Time and Tide.'
{8} Modern "Education" for the most part signifies giving people
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by Karl Marx: order to remain in possession of implements of warfare.
The party of Order provoked the Mountain immediately upon the convening
of the assembly. The bourgeoisie now felt the necessity of disposing of
the democratic small traders' class, just as a year before it had
understood the necessity of putting an end to the revolutionary
proletariat.
But the position of the foe had changed. The strength of the
proletarian party was on the streets ; that of the small traders' class
was in the National Assembly itself. The point was, accordingly, to
wheedle them out of the National Assembly into the street, and to have
them break their parliamentary power themselves, before I time and
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